cats, carpets and customer care

It’s been an interesting, and expensive, week for one member of the Onswitch team. Noticing a swollen lump on the cat’s head, our Onswitcher takes said tomcat to the vet. He can be a little bit fighty (the cat, not the vet. As far as we know) and it looked to us like a war wound abscess. Once in the consult room, the vet says nine words. Nine! (We counted them.) The cat was given antibiotics and we were sent away to “see how he gets on”. The bill was paid by card, but there was no receipt, no explanation, and no warmth. Three days later, this is how the cat ‘got on’. He placed himself on the best carpet just in time for the abscess to discharge itself spectacularly all over the place. We said nine words. Swear words. New carpet required. We take the cat back to the practice and they tell us that it was an abscess. Which we had known all along. The cat is sedated and what little remains inside the lump is drained out, in silence. We pay another bill and once again there is no receipt. At this point we ask to speak with the manager, frustrated at the lack of communication and empathy that we and our now-rather-less-feisty tom have experienced on both visits. The manager is not concerned, and we are cut short from a conversation which is clearly going nowhere with an air of ‘like it or lump it’. Flippin’ lumps. Fortunately for us, there are several other practices where we can take our tom, along with our two new kittens and all their accompanying vaccinations, neuters and lifetime veterinary costs. Which just goes to show why a warm and collaborative service is so crucial – this practice has lost many hundreds of pounds of potential income, not just from us, but from all the other local people we will share our experience with. If you don’t create a rapport with your clients, if you don’t explain why you’re doing what you’re doing and make clear recommendations for next steps, then we won’t trust our beloved pets to you. So here are nine more words: Without our trust, you have no business. End of.